]]>
Politics is essentially relational. It concerns the ways in which people live together and find common meaning in order to inform shared cultural narratives. In an era of widespread disillusionment, three political pioneers invite our audience to engage anew. With David Taylor, Tamsin Osmond, Mike Thomas talking about http://thefuture.net/, real utopias and green politics.

]]>http://www.permanentculturenow.com/politics-and-social-change/feed/0375110Film: How to make a seed bombhttp://www.permanentculturenow.com/how-to-make-a-seed-bomb/
http://www.permanentculturenow.com/how-to-make-a-seed-bomb/#respondWed, 03 Dec 2014 10:28:59 +0000http://www.permanentculturenow.com/?p=217562Follow Steve from Permanent Culture Now as he shows you how to make a seed bomb, then go out an invade the derelict space around where you live.

]]>
It’s 40 years since Wally Hope started the Peoples’ Free Festivals at Stonehenge and 30 years since the last one.

Wally Dean will tell the tales of The Wallies and the Peace Convoy. He will take us from Wally’s utopian vision, his incarceration, and his suspicious demise, to the heyday of the anarchic free festival movement and its oppression at the hands of Thatcher’s Tory Party and the continuing struggle to free Stonehenge today.

Wally Hope was the catalyst that spawned Crass and the anarcho-punk movement. His death still inspires conspiracy theories after all this time.

]]>http://www.permanentculturenow.com/wally-hope-and-stonehenge-festival/feed/0213126Film: Gee Vaucher Anti War Arthttp://www.permanentculturenow.com/gee-vaucher-anti-war-art/
http://www.permanentculturenow.com/gee-vaucher-anti-war-art/#respondMon, 01 Dec 2014 15:07:48 +0000http://www.permanentculturenow.com/?p=209688Gee Vaucher from CRASS, discussing her work and its impact from the 1980's onwards, hear from people influenced by Crass and how Gee develops her art.

Bristol Radical History Group are hosting the international History From Below network conference which brings together historian-activists from all over Europe. This is a great opportunity to hear international perspectives, as participants in the conference give short presentations on hidden histories of World War One. In addition we will be exhibiting a collection of anti-war art by one of the most influential graphic artists of the 1980s, Gee Vaucher of CRASS, who will be discussing her work and its impact in the period.

]]>http://www.permanentculturenow.com/gee-vaucher-anti-war-art/feed/0209688Dagenham, Drum & League of Black Revolutionary Workershttp://www.permanentculturenow.com/dagenham-drum-and-the-league-of-black-revolutionary-workers/
http://www.permanentculturenow.com/dagenham-drum-and-the-league-of-black-revolutionary-workers/#respondSun, 30 Nov 2014 09:31:45 +0000http://www.permanentculturenow.com/?p=204213Film of talk by ex-members (such as the late General Baker) of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, arguably one of the most radical working class organisations in the US in the 20th century.

In December 2011 Bristol Radical History Group were invited to participate in a ‘history’ meeting in Detroit, USA. This gathering included ex-members (such as the late General Baker) of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, arguably one of the most radical working class organisations in the US in the 20th century. Also present was Marvin Surkin, one of the authors of Detroit: I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution, the seminal history of revolutionary class struggle in the auto-industry in Detroit in the 1960s and 70s.

]]>http://www.permanentculturenow.com/dagenham-drum-and-the-league-of-black-revolutionary-workers/feed/0204213Popular Educationhttp://www.permanentculturenow.com/popular-education/
http://www.permanentculturenow.com/popular-education/#respondSat, 26 Jul 2014 10:37:39 +0000http://www.permanentculturenow.com/?p=9065Popular Education, what it is, how to do it, loads of films and links to more information.

]]>Popular Education is a new way of teaching which offers a much more participative and democratic way of learning. The following gives an overview of Popular Education, what it is, how to do it, loads of films and links to more information.

Popular education overview

“Tell me, and I forget. Show me, and I remember. Involve me, and I understand.”(Chinese proverb)

Education, and in particular popular education, is vital to respond to the ecological, social and climatic crises we face and to achieve meaningful radical social change. An education where we relearn co-operation and responsibility that is critically reﬂective but creatively looks forward – an education that is popular, of and from the people. There are many examples of groups that organise their own worlds without experts and professionals, challenge their enemies and build movements for change. What we outline here is what is known as popular, liberatory or radical education which aims at getting people to understand their world around them, so they can take back control collectively, understand their world, intervene in it, and transform it. This chapter looks at the importance of education in bringing about social change, and indeed how social movements for change have popular education at their core.

So what does popular education mean?

The word ‘popular’ can mean many things and has been mobilised by the right as well as the left. There is no single political project behind the methods of popular education. It has been used by all sorts of people including revolutionary guerillas, feminists, and adult educators; all with different aims. Development practitioners from organisations such as the World Bank, for example, increasingly use popular or participatory education to co-opt, manipulate and inﬂuence communities to secure particular versions of development. Yet it is important to promote and reclaim some of the more radical strands of popular education which are rooted in deﬁance (‘we are not going to take this anymore’), and struggle (‘we want to change things’), and geared towards change (‘how do we get out of this mess’), while promoting solidarity (‘your struggle is our struggle’).

The Popular Education Forum of Scotland (Crowther, Martin and Shaw 1999) deﬁnes popular as:

1. Rooted in the real interests and struggles of ordinary people.

2. Overtly political and critical of the status quo.

3. Committed to progressive social and political change.

4. A curriculum which comes out of the concrete experience and material interests of people in communities of resistance and struggle.

5. A pedagogy which is collective, primarily focused on group rather than individual learning and development.

6. Attempts to forge a direct link between education and social action.

One of the activities that we have used in our workshops to start thinking about how we learn is to look at positive and negative learning experiences. People have told us that negative experiences are characterised by fear, discipline, constant assessment, humiliation, being bullied or bored, and unenthusiastic teachers. Positive experiences, on the other hand, are often those that are creative, interactive, student led, interesting, when learners are given responsibility, and take place in a supportive and friendly environment. Although many teachers in the state sector use participatory and progressive teaching methods, state funded education remains constrained by large class sizes, national curricula and targets. Table 7.1 outlines brieﬂy some of the main differences between the overarching aims of formalised education in schools and universities, and popular education.

Key aspects of popular education

1. A commitment to transformation and solidarity

Popular educators are not experts who sit on the sidelines; they participate in social movements, be they literacy campaigns, teach-ins about globalisation or by participating in actions. Solidarity means being on the side of the marginalised and working with agendas and goals chosen by those affected, not outside agencies. Charity and aid can provide temporary relief but are rarely designed to break the chains of dependency and encourage people to run their own affairs. At the heart of popular education is a desire not just to understand the world, but to empower people so they can change it. By identifying and exposing power relations, we can begin to develop an understanding of how we might challenge ways of organising social and economic life which perpetuate injustice, at whatever scale. This type of education is not about explaining external problems, but also confronting each other and the social roles we have adopted. To make ‘other possible worlds’, we must also change ourselves and learn to listen to the experiences of others. It’s not enough to understand how we think power works ‘out there’ if we overlook our role in reproducing power. Asking questions rather than providing answers is fundamental: What do we accept and reject? How do we pass on systems of domination be they class, gender, ethnicity or sexuality? How can we challenge these within ourselves? This way of teaching and learning is challenging and requires effort on both sides. Paulo Freire called it the ‘practice of freedom’ and talked of the dialectical relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed. This is what Freire meant by conscientization, through which we recognise our presence in the world, and, rather than adapting or adhering to social norms, we realise our potential to intervene and challenge inequality.

2. Learning our own histories not his-story

Although there is always at least two sides to every story, the vast majority of ofﬁcial history is exactly that – ‘his-story’, written by the literate educated few, mainly men, not by peasants, workers or women. We are taught about leaders of world wars and histories of great scientists, but not much about the silent millions who struggle daily for justice. These are the ordinary people doing extraordinary things who are the invisible makers of history. When they do appear, they are often portrayed as violent extremists. Few learn about the Haymarket martyrs in nineteenth-century Chicago who fought for an eight hour day, the nineteenth-century Luddites who challenged the factory system during the Industrial Revolution, or the women who occupied the Shell platforms in Ogoniland, Nigeria. Many of these stories are not told because people could not read or write, or did not have any means to record events and communicate with a wider audience. They are not recorded by historians because they evoke the dangerous idea that ordinary people can act collectively and do it themselves. Talking about a proposed gas pipeline in County Mayo, Ireland, a campaigner reﬂected,

“A generation ago we could not have resisted this pipeline, because we could not read and write – we wouldn’t have been able to respond to what Shell were saying and doing or ﬁght them in the courts. Now we can ﬁght Shell on the same level and they don’t know what to do. (Vincent McGrath, Shell to Sea Campaign, interview with authors, June 2005)”

It is important to relearn our own hidden histories of struggle, they exist everywhere and can be uncovered. They can help to dispel apathy (‘it’s not worth it’) and powerlessness (‘it’s too overwhelming’). Learning these lessons show us that most of our freedoms and improvements, which we value in our lives today, have been fought for and won through collective and sustained action by people like ourselves, not great leaders. Oral history projects that engage with members of a community and record their memories and walks that visit sites of historical interest, of uprisings and old ways of life are two ways of relearning and connecting these forgotten histories.

3. Starting from daily reality

Any project should begin by looking for connections between problems and people’s everyday lives, not a preconceived idea of this reality. Popular education is about avoiding judging people and encouraging people to express themselves, in their own way. It is not about learning lists of facts, but looking at where people ﬁnd themselves and how they understand what’s going on around them. Many believe that learning happens best where there is afﬁnity between the educator and the participants – and when common experiences can be used as the material to be studied. In his work on popular education in the El Salvadorian revolution, John Hammond observed that the teachers in the National Liberation Front (an army largely made up of illiterate peasantry) were generally combatants who had only recently learnt to read or write themselves. The biggest challenge can be building bridges between disparate worlds. Talking about television or football and ﬁnding things in common can be ways to start a conversation. It takes time to connect with people, and respect and trust are the keys to positive learning.

4. Learning together as equals

Popular education methods are designed to increase participation and break down the hierarchy between educator/teacher and participant/learner. The educators and those they are working with collectively own the process, ideally deciding the curriculum and determining the outcome of the action to be taken. Whilst in many contexts educators are seen as experts who can provide quick ﬁxes, popular education has an explicit aim to reduce dependency between educators and those they engage with. Radical educator, Myles Horton, would tell his students at Highlander that if he gave them an easy answer today, what would stop them coming back tomorrow and asking him again? He argues that groups trying to ﬁnd a way out of a problem are often the most capable of experimenting with possible solutions and should be encouraged to do so.

5. Getting out of the classroom

A critique of the powers and rules we live by cannot ﬂourish when learning only happens within the ofﬁcial institutions and places controlled and funded by those in power. The state control of schools and compulsory education is not inevitable, nor does it reﬂect a widely articulated need. However, it has become all encompassing. The school forms the ideology, patriotism and social structure of the modern nation state. Free, compulsory education is now based on the assumptions that the state has the responsibility to educate all its citizens, the right to force parents to send their children to school, to impose taxes on the entire community to school their children and to determine the nature of the education on offer. One particular issue is the creeping inﬂuence of corporations on our education – through private academies, but also through sponsorship of learning materials, research, and even food and entertainment. Whilst we enjoy a ‘free education’ (i.e. we generally don’t have to pay) the inﬂuence of private corporations in the delivery of curricula as well as in schools’ facilities is increasingly a cause for concern. Teachers are ever more limited in what they can teach by the national curriculum, and there is more compulsory testing from a younger age. Students are taught conformity to values chosen by government and increasingly big business. A recent report highlighted the links between universities and the oil industry: Through its sponsorship of new buildings, equipment, professorships and research posts, the oil and gas industry has ‘captured’ the allegiance of some of Britain’s leading universities. As a result, universities are helping to lock us in to a fossil fuel future. (Muttitt 2003, 2)

Getting out of the classroom and institutionalised learning environments is a key part of rethinking learning about everyday life – outside encounters, street life, listening to somebody, at home, within the community are all places of learning that gives us valuable social skills and rounds our knowledge. This type of learning is also about challenging education’s negative associations and making learning passionate, interesting and challenging. People learn everywhere and using social

and cultural events, music, food and ﬁ lm is a good way to reach out to people who may not come to a talk or workshop. Experiments in education beyond formal schools include ‘Schools Without Walls’, such as the Parkway Program in Philadelphia where the whole city was used as a resource.

6. Inspiring social change

Discussing important subjects, such as climate change, can be depressing and can leave us with feelings of despair and doom. Rather than avoid talking about them we can look at ways to deal with this. Firstly, we can identify a number of common barriers to changing attitudes or behaviour:

• Apathy, ‘I can’t be bothered’ or ‘It doesn’t affect me’.

• Denial that the issue exists.

• Feeling of powerlessness to do anything about the situation.

• Feeling overwhelmed by the size and scale of the problem/issue.

• Socio-economic time pressures and lack of support.

The way that learning happens can turn these attitudes around and help us turn our outrage and passion in to practical steps for action, our dreams in to realities. We can explore examples from the past where people have struggled and won and focus on workable alternatives. Practical tips for planning a workshop can help, such as identifying small achievable aims, breaking down issues in to manageable chunks, providing further resources, helping with action planning and campaign building.

Radical educators take on the responsibility to guide groups beyond common fears to reveal answers and possible escape routes to problems, laying possible options on the table. The art lies in the ability to make connections and establish bridges between people’s everyday realities and what they start to think is possible in the future. Hence, inspirations for social change are presented slowly and gradually, with honest reﬂection, compromise and setbacks along the way.

Part of this learning experience is about sharing what is feasible, both in the here and now and other times and places. There are many workable ways of living that directly challenge the money economy, wage labour and ecological crises – many of which are discussed in this book – working co-operatives, community gardens, low impact living, direct action, autonomous spaces, independent media. On their own they may not seem much and are spread far and wide. But if they are gathered up and presented collectively they can provide excitement and hope and form a basis for a more creative, autonomous life

Popular education in action

There is a rich history that criss-crosses the world as people have struggled for freedom and against oppression. Popular education has ﬂourished at times of big social upheavals, when people question the way the world is, and see a need to change their lives.

Educating the workers for freedom

The Industrial Revolution meant massive changes and new realities such as overcrowding, long working days and urban poverty. Working-class people in the UK did not have the right to formal education; in fact many educators and members of the aristocracy argued that education would confuse and agitate working people. Various associations were established to campaign against this injustice. Some authorities conceded that education for working people might be useful so long as it was devoted only to basic skills development. Associations struggling against these views developed their own forms of education – ‘rag’ magazines, study groups and community activities. Socialists of various affiliations struggled to educate themselves and those around them to understand and tackle the horriﬁc new realities of life, whilst openly trying to develop class consciousness.

The book The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist (1918) by Robert Tressell is one famous example. It depicts the efforts of Owen, a ﬁ rebrand socialist painter, trying to educate his reactionary pals about the evils of capitalism. A rich tradition exists ranging from the Labour colleges, the Correspondence societies during the revolutions in France and the USA, to later experiments such as Co-operative colleges, Workers’ Educational Association, and adult education colleges such as Ruskin College in Oxford. Many of these presented a blueprint for transformation to a socialist society, based more or less on a Marxist-Leninist perspective. Alongside the workshop and the trade union, Marx schools or Workers’ universities were set up. These sprang up across the world into the twentieth century, offering classes to workers in the basics of socialist thinking whilst also training professional international socialist activists and agitators, and becoming a focus for anti-communist surveillance and repression. Radical organising in working-class communities has continued through tenants’ and claimants’ unions, and in the UK through anti-poll tax unions drawing on these powerful roots.

Free schools

Many educational alternatives have been tried over the years, experimenting with radical education through free or progressive schools. Many had revolutionary potential, not just undermining state power, but also challenging ways of life and were seen as a real threat. For example, Spanish anarchist Francisco Ferrer was executed for plotting a military insurgency when he opened a school that was free from religious dogma. The high point for free schools was the New Schools movement in Europe in the mid twentieth century. Schools were based on voluntary attendance and children and teachers governed the school together. There was no compulsory curriculum, no streaming, no exams or head teacher. Instead libertarian ideas were promoted and there was a focus on creative learning and interaction between different ages and the outside world. Free schools exist throughout the world, such as Mirambika in India and Sudbury Valley School in the USA. British examples include Abbotsholme School in Staffordshire and Summerhill in Suffolk. While education is compulsory, schooling isn’t; networks such as Education Otherwise and the Home Education Network provide support for the thousands of parents in the UK who choose to educate their children at home.

Struggles for independence

Popular education movements have played central roles in the struggles for independence in many colonised countries. In the twentieth century, socialist inspired nationalist struggles across Latin America and Africa used popular education to engage with the masses, challenge oppression, apartheid and colonialism. Liberatory educators in countries including Nicaragua, Granada, Cuba, El Salvador and South Africa set up educational programmes to mobilise the masses, especially the rural poor. In these revolutionary contexts popular schools ﬂourished. ‘People’s Education for People’s Power’ in South Africa, for example, was a movement born in the mid 1980s in reaction to apartheid and was an explicit political and educational strategy to mobilise against the exploitation of the black population. It organised Street Law and Street Justice programmes and literacy and health workshops – these programmes were also subject to repression.

Latin America

One of the best known examples of popular education being used to challenge oppression and improving the lives of illiterate people is the work of Paulo Freire in Brazil. Working with landless peasants, he developed an innovative approach to literacy education believing it should mean much more than simply learning how to read and write. Freire argued that educators should also help people to analyse their situation. His students learned to read and write through discussion of basic problems they were experiencing themselves, such as no access to agricultural land. As the causes of their problems were considered, the students analysed and discussed what action could be taken to change their situation.

Radical popular education has recently seen a resurgence in Latin America, as people try to make sense of the current crisis brought about by 30 years of neoliberal economic policies. In Argentina after the 2001 economic crisis, Rondas de Pensamiento Autonomo (roundtables for autonomous discussion) and open platforms in neighbourhood assemblies have become common features where people talk about the crisis and possible solutions. The Madres de Plaza de Mayo (The ‘Mothers’ who tirelessly campaign against the disappearance of many innocent people during Argentina’s dirty war) have set up the Universidad Popular Madres de Plaza de Mayo on the Plaza del Congreso in the centre of Buenos Aires. This people’s university, dedicated to popular education, houses Buenos Aires’ best political book shop, the literary cafe Osvaldo Bayer, and gallery and workshop space which holds classes, seminars and debates on topics from across Latin America. Since the establishment of the Venezuelan Bolivarian Republic in 2001 under Hugo Chavez, Bolivarian circles and local assemblies have spread to engage people in implementing decision making and the new constitution.

Education for global justice

Over the last ten years, the anti/alter-globalisation struggle has been a hotbed for popular education activity. A global summit of world leaders rarely passes without several teach-ins, counter conferences and skill sharing events where activists and campaigners come together to inspire and inform each other about what they are attempting to understand and challenge. Groups and networks have emerged dedicated to producing and disseminating a huge amount of information on topics crucial to understanding our contemporary world: sweat shop labour, fair trade, immigration, war and militarisation, the effects of genetically modiﬁed organisms, neocolonialism and climate change. Hallmarks of such workshops are teaching horizontally and encouraging equal participation. Whilst big campaigns and mobilisations are often times for such educational outreach there are many social centres that provide space for ongoing autonomous education. La Prospe in Madrid has, since the mid 1970s, hosted Grupos D’Apprendizaje Collectiva (Groups for Collective Learning) on topics such as gender, globalisation, basic skills and literacy. As well as converging at global summits there are many international gatherings and seminars that all provide means of exchanging, building and networking ideas and experiences of different groups.

Where now for popular education?

Social change will not be achieved by a small group but will involve bringing people together on an equal basis. One of the issues that has faced the alter globalisation movement is it’s need to communicate with aider audiences to get off the activist track. Although popular education on its own is not enough, it is one way for people to engage themselves and their communities in these discussions, to begin to think of their needs and possibilities that can be created.

In post 9/11 USA, Katz-Fishman and Scott argue that a climate of fear, hysteria and pseudo-patriotism has been created to control and contain dissent. they argue that:

“To prevent the fragmentation and break down of community means organising ongoing educational development among grassroots-low-income and student scholar activist communities of all racial-ethnic-nationality groups and bring people together on the basis of equality.”(Katz-Fishman and Scott (2003)

This, they argue, must be done ‘community by community and workplace by workplace’. We echo and support this call to action, to extend groups and networks of popular and radical education.

There is a widespread sense that something is not working. The illusion of inﬁnite upward economic growth can’t be maintained for much longer as natural resources become scarcer and the capacity for the planet to absorb waste becomes exhausted. There is therefore, a potential for radical critiques to be articulated and developed. Popular education tools can help us do this in ways that make sense to people and to reveal why alternatives are possible and necessary. One great potential of popular education is that its participatory methods mean that ‘activists’ learn to make their ideas relevant and accessible. In a world where we all impact upon the lives of others, the boundary between who is the oppressor and the oppressed becomes increasingly confused. In the developed world, as consumers of the world’s resources driving a system of global exploitation, we must teach ourselves about the impacts we have on the world, the role our governments play, how to take responsibility, and, most importantly, how we can take action to change this. An education that seeks to address unequal power relations and empower collective action is vital. The work of people over the centuries, with limited resources but with a passion for change, should be our inspiration.

Popular education projects you can do

How to inspire change through learning

How things are taught is as important as what is taught in inspiring people to take action in their own lives. In these days of compassion overload we can’t assume that any shocking statistic or distressing story will have any impact. Instead we need creative ways to think and learn about the problems we face. In the year 2004–5 shortly after we formed our popular education collective Trapese, we carried out over 100 workshops, talks and quiz shows round the UK and Ireland exploring issues of the G8, climate change, debt and resistance. Since then we have continued our work exploring popular education methods as a way to support a range of campaigns. This chapter brings together practical advice which is based on our own experience of a four month long educational roadshow and from other groups who also use popular education as a tool for change.

Many of the activities and games mentioned in this chapter have been adapted from tried and tested methods of others doing similar work who made their resources available. What links the activities together is that they aim to create a collective understanding of problems, root causes and encourage people to take action, tapping into a desire for change. This is just a starter, there are many websites and books that expand all these ideas (see the resources box), but we believe that there is no better way to learn than by doing.

Getting organised

Here are some of the stages in organising an event.

(a) Knowing the subject

Choosing the theme should be the easy part, remember to have a clear focus for the workshop. Local issues can quickly be scaled up and connected with bigger questions.

Find out as much as possible about the participants – how often they meet, what their interests are, what level of awareness they may have about the topics you want to talk about.

While you don’t need to be an expert, it’s important to have some concrete facts as they will help give you credibility and conﬁdence. Use books, ﬁlms and websites, newspaper clippings and quotes from the radio, TV and ﬁlms.

Research any existing campaigns and try to understand the arguments of all sides.

(b) Designing the workshop

Running a workshop with more than one person can really help practically – it also gives more variety.

Bear in mind that people normally retain more if they have an opportunity to discuss, question and digest. Less is more.

Remember that there are neither correct answers nor easy conclusions. The aim of the activities is to plant the seeds of questioning and encourage people to ﬁnd out more for themselves.

Use a variety of different types of information – ﬁlms, games, debates and allow free time for questions and informal discussion.

Include plans for action and possible future steps early on. Things often take longer than you imagine and it’s depressing to hear all about a problem and then be left with no time to discuss what to do about it.

Allow time for breaks – in our experience, any more than one and a half hours and people will start to switch off.

(c) The practicalities

Getting people along can be the main challenge, look out for existing groups, unions, community groups/centres and spaces which have similar events.

Advertise as early and as widely as possible using posters, websites, email lists, etc. but also think about personal invitations, which can be most effective.

Set up all the equipment you need well in advance to avoid last minute stress.

If space permits, arrange the chairs in a circle as people can see each other and there is no one at the front lecturing.

Think of a method for people to give feedback and to exchange contact details.

Provide snacks and drinks.

Offer people the possibility of further sources of information, either through handouts or websites.

(d) Facilitating

Keep to an agreed time frame and explain the aims and structure of the workshop.

If you are friendly and respectful, then other people are more likely to follow your example.

Make a brief group agreement at the start – this can include things like everyone will turn off mobile phones, agree to listen to other people speaking, wait their turn, etc.

Ask people who haven’t spoken if they would like to contribute.

Don’t be afraid to admit that you don’t know the answer. You can offer to find out or suggest that you find the answer together.

People learn best when they come to their own conclusions. The facilitator’s role is to lead people through information, rather than presenting completed solutions. Ask questions and encourage participants to ask questions. For example, ‘the way it works is …’ can be replaced by ‘why do you think it works that way?’ This may take a bit longer but it is more likely to be absorbed.

Use bright, colourful props and a range of media to draw people’s attention. Dress appropriately to the group.

Exercises for social change

Think of a really boring teacher at school. What made them boring? Were they monotonous, arrogant, bossy or stern? Think of some piece of information that really impacted on you. Why do you remember it? What struck you about it? How was it presented? Thinking about being a participant yourself will help you to plan a workshop. At the same time, remember people learn in different ways – through listening, writing, drawing, speaking and acting – so try and use a variety of senses. Many of these activities can be easily adapted to work on other topics.

1. Warm ups

Warm ups set the context of workshops and allow everyone to get to know each other. They can be more animated or calming depending on what you feel is appropriate for the group. Games can be a good way to create a participatory environment where everyone feels they can contribute. Some physical contact (being aware of different abilities and cultural sensitivities) can be a good way to relax people and break down personal boundaries. Go round the room and ask people to say their names, and if there is enough time ask them to add what they hope to get out of the workshop. This can help the facilitator pitch things accordingly.

Play a game:

Before you do anything, try playing a short physical game – we all know many from our childhood, such as musical chairs, keeping a ball or balloon up in the air, or stuck in the mud.

Finding Common Ground

Aim: An icebreaker and a way to see how many similarities exist in the group’s

Method: Everyone stands in a circle. Explain that when a statement is read out, if they AGREE they should take a small step forward. If they DON’T AGREE, stay put. No steps to be taken backwards.

Statements should try and reﬂect the interests of the group and controversial or topical issues. for example:

‘I think corporations are taking over our political processes’.

‘This makes me angry’.

‘I drink fair trade coffee/tea’.

‘I don’t think that’s enough’.

‘If more world leaders were women, the world would be a better place’ etc.

Depending on the size of the group, with ten or so statements everyone should be in the centre of the room. At this stage you can all sit back down again. Alternatively, ask each member of the group to close their eyes and put out their hands into the middle of the (now very small) circle. Ask each person to take two other hands. When they open their eyes the task is to untangle the knot of hands.

Outcomes and tips: The tangle is also good for working together out of an apparently impossible mess. Be prepared to abandon it if it takes ages!

2. Collective learning

Before beginning an explanation about collective learning, ask people what they already know about it. One way of doing this is to idea storm around an issue. Ask people to shout out what they know about something and write it up visibly so that everyone can see the ideas. Don’t correct people at the time if they say something incorrectly but make a mental note to come back to the point later.

Acronym game/Articulate

Aim: To jargon bust, build group understanding of terms and to gauge the existing knowledge of a group. The game introduces lots of background information and gets people working in teams.

Method: Write out some relevant acronyms or words on small cards. Divide the group into teams and divide the cards so they have roughly one per person. Ask groups to discuss the cards and work out what they are/mean/ do. Help if necessary. Each group then presents the acronym to the other groups without saying any of the words in the name. For example, if you have WTO you can’t say the words ‘World’, ‘Trade’ or ‘Organisation’ in your description but something like, ‘It’s a global institution that makes rules about and removes barriers to trade’. Or an emotional response, ‘It’s the most damaging institution in the world and should be abolished’. The team which correctly guesses what the acronym stands for receives the card.

Ask the group if they can explain the idea in more detail.

Some acronyms we have used include:

PFIs (Private Finance Initiatives). Corporations investing in public services, such as hospitals and schools.

Outcomes and tips: Demystifying complicated acronyms and terms is important to developing a critical awareness about our world. This game can last a long time so be prepared to cut it short in order to stick to your workshop plan. Any words, names or ideas can be used for this game and it is a good lead in to the Spidergram game (see below).

Spidergram (Mapping Climate Change)

Aim: To explore a topic visually, make connections between ideas and unpack cause and effect.

Method: In small groups, draw a box in the middle of a big piece of paper and write the big theme which you want to explore, e.g. ‘climate change’. Ask people to think of things which directly cause this like ‘ﬂ ights’, ‘cars’ and connect these to the centre with a line. Then think of problems or issues relating to these issues like ‘pollution’, ‘asthma’, ‘trafﬁ c jams’, etc. If linking to the acronym game, mentioned above, choose a couple of cards and ask people to draw connecters to other cards and arrange them.

Outcomes and tips: You’ll soon build up a picture of connections like a spider’s web.

Ask the group which words have the most links. Make sure you go round and help

3. Using visual activities

It is often more striking to see something simply but visually than to listen to a long list of statistics. Physical and visual activities change the pace and dynamic of a workshop, which helps participants retain concentration. Look for possibilities of involving practical tasks, training or experiments in the workshop.

Chair game

Aim: A simple way to show the imbalance between the G8 countries and the rest of the world. This game can be modiﬁed to represent other imbalances or statistical information, e.g. debt, trade or carbon emissions.

Method: Ask ten volunteers to form a line with their chairs and to sit on them. You are going to ask a series of questions and in each question, one chair equates to 10 per cent of the total. During the game, people will move along the chairs according to their allocated amount. Always try to get the answers from the participants.

Explain that the ten people represent the world’s population, which is roughly 6 billion – so each person represents 10 per cent or 600 million people.

Question: What percentage of the world’s population is in G8 countries?

Answer: 12 per cent.

Nominate one person (ideally at one end of the line) to represent the G8. The remaining 88 per cent are the majority world.

Question: What percentage of the world’s total Gross Economic Output is produced by the G8

countries?

Answer: 48 per cent (roughly 50 per cent).

Ask the nominated G8 person to occupy ﬁve chairs while the remaining nine squeeze on to the other ﬁve chairs.

Question: What percentage of the world’s total annual carbon emissions are produced by the G8 countries?

Answer: 62 per cent.

Ask the nominated G8 person to occupy six chairs while the remaining nine squeeze on to the other four chairs.

Question: Of the top 100 multinationals how many have their headquarters in G8 countries?

Answer: 98 per cent.

That would leave the majority without any chairs but if the G8 generously gave a bit of aid that would leave them with one chair. Ask the nominated G8 person to occupy nine chairs while the remaining nine squeeze on to only one chair. This is obviously quite difﬁcult.

Outcomes and tips: Ask the G8 how he/she is feeling – then ask the majority world

what they would do to change the situation. Some people might try to persuade the

G8 to give them their chairs back; others just go and take them.

4.Debate it!

Often participants really value an opportunity to talk freely, but as a facilitator free debate can be very difficult to structure and dominant personalities or viewpoints can easily take over. The following activities help to structure things.

The YES/NO game (or Issue Lines)

Aim: To see opinions in relation to other points of view and for participants to try and defend or persuade others of their perspective.

Method: All stand up and explain that you are all standing on a long line with YES at one end and NO at the other and NOT SURE somewhere in the middle. (It can help to make signs.) Read a statement and ask people to position themselves in the room depending on their point of view. When people have moved, ask someone standing in the YES or NO sections to try and explain why they are standing where they are, then ask the opposite side for an opinion. Allow the debate to continue awhile and then ask participants to reposition themselves depending on what they have heard.

Questions that we have used include:

Is nuclear power a viable, alternative to fossil fuels?

Is it desirable that levels of consumption in the developing world equal that of those in the ‘developed’ world?

Outcomes and tips: These debates are often lively. Be careful not to allow any one person, including the facilitator, to dominate and make sure the question has a possible yes-no range of answers. Try working in smaller groups to allow everyone to speak and then give time for groups to feed back their main points.

Role plays

Aim: To present different opinions and encourage people to think from varied perspectives. Role plays enable participants to develop characters and take on their opinions, providing an excellent opportunity to express common misconceptions and controversial opinions without the participants speaking personally.

Method: Prepare a ‘pro’ ‘anti’ and/or ‘neutral’ camp with prompt cards for each. This should include context, details on how to act and speak, and ideas on how to respond to questioning. Explain that people should keep in this role at all times, even if they don’t agree with the views expressed. Give people time to discuss and expand on the prompt cards. A good way to structure discussion is to chair a hearing between the different parties, where a mediator asks each side to present their case in turn. Allow time for open questions, followed by a summing up.

Example: Building a local road.

Chief Executive of Gotham City: Your city is booming and the key to its success is road transport. Business and tourists are being attracted from the whole country. Argue that: if the new ring road doesn’t go ahead then the economic viability of the area will suffer. Less growth means fewer taxes, which means less money for public services.

Concerned citizens near the proposed road: There has been so much development in this city that there doesn’t seem a case for any more. Roads are jammed already and just building more roads doesn’t solve the problem, but only encourages more car use. Argue that: more cars equals more pollution, accidents and unhealthy lifestyles.

Outcomes and tips: Role plays need to be well prepared and work best when people are conﬁdent speaking in front of each other. With a longer session, ask participants to research and develop roles for small groups to enact.

5.Connecting histories and lives

Sharing our collective pasts is a key way to begin to understand our present and to imagine our futures. There are many ways to do this, through oral histories, participatory video documentaries, etc. It can also be useful to plot events on to a visual representation of history.

The rise of global capitalism and resistance timeline

Aim: To chart the rise of the current economic system and global resistance to it, to show international organisations in context. It can be used, for example, to show how US foreign policy has worked and evolved, or how resistance movements in the global North and South have progressed and connected.

Method: Draw a timeline on a big piece of paper or cloth, write key moments of the development of the economy and resistance events on to cards and give one or two to each pair. Give them time to discuss it and ask any questions about it and then ask them to put the events on the timeline where they think it occurred. Also give participants blank cards and ask them to ﬁll in things they would like to add – maybe from their local area or that they have been inspired by. Go through the events, asking others to explain and give their opinions and help people identify connections.

Outcomes and tips: This activity helps people see connections between seemingly separate events. Make sure you have reliable information on dates, etc.

6.Get out of the classroom – creative educational events

Plays, ﬁlm screenings, music, talent shows, bike rides, mural painting, nature trails, and cooking are all ways to get together and can be adapted to a theme. A walking tour can be a great way to bring a theme to life and to learn about our built environment or local history.

Walking tours of immigration controls and the ‘chain of deportation’

Aim: To draw to people’s attention institutions, companies and government departments involved in the chain of deportation of asylum seekers. A tour exposes the process and joins the dots in the picture of detention and deportation and helps understand the system.

Method: Research the government sponsored institutions and private companies that earn money carrying out these racist policies, and organise a tour to visit some of the places in your area that are involved in locking up and deporting asylum seekers. Go as a walking tour in groups, assemble in a public place and have easily identiﬁed guides with maps, information, loud speakers, music, etc.

Social change pub quiz

Aim: A social event where the content matter is related to important issues. Can be a good way to outreach to different audiences.

Method: Find a venue to host you – community centre, student union bar or a local pub – and advertise the event. Make up several themed rounds of questions, get answer sheets, pens and prizes and maybe a microphone. Keep it varied by using multiple choice, picture or music rounds, bingo or maybe even some subverted karaoke.

Example: The Food Round.

1. How many million battery chickens are produced for consumption each year in the UK? (Answer: 750 million)

2. How many billion did Wal-Mart’s global sales amount to in 2002; was it (a) $128 billion, (b) $244.5 billion, or (c) $49 billion? (Answer: b)

3 What is the legal UK limit for the number of pus cells per litre of milk that may be legally sold for human consumption? (Answer: Up to 400 million)

Sources: 1. and 2. Corporate Watch (2001) 3. Butler (2006).

7. Planning for Action

The aim of the game is that people leave with concrete ideas about what they are going to actually do – a next date, an ambition or a vision. This stage is also a chance for people to share ideas about the things they are already doing and plug any events or projects.

Action mapping

Aim: To show a variety of actions and inter-connections.

Method: Ask groups to think of two ways to tackle the issue that the workshop is dealing with at different levels: the individual, local and national/international for example.

Outcomes and tips: Get groups to think about time scales for their actions and how they practically might do them. A variation is to think about two things to do this week, this month, this year, etc.

Picture sequences

Aim: To look at how things are and how we would like them to be, and to work out how to get there.

Method: Draw a simple picture that represents, ‘the present’, with all the problems illustrated. Then, as a group, put together a second drawing to represent ‘the future’, which shows the same situation once the problems have been overcome or the improvements made. Make sure you incorporate everyone’s ideas of what you hope to achieve. Once you have the drawings, put them where everyone can see them with a space in between them, then ask yourselves how you can get from the ﬁrst to the second. What needs to happen to get there? How could it be achieved? Use the answers to make your own middle, between the present and the future. Now you have your vision and have gone some way to working out your action plan.

Presents

Aim: To end the workshop on a high note and to get participants to ‘think the impossible’.

Method: Identify the main problem that people want to focus on. Give out cards with an imaginary present written on to each participant. Ask them to describe how they would use their present to solve the problem.

Examples:

the ability to look like anyone you want

£1 million

a minute of prime time TV

a key that unlocks any lock

an invisibility cloak

a guarantee you’ll never get caught.

Calendars of resistance

It’s important to share information on other things that you know are going on in the area. Draw up a calendar with contact details for people to get more information.

Skills for good communication

Challenge dominance. Both from vocal participants and as facilitators. Be open from the start about why activities are being undertaken and do not manipulate participants to certain ideological ends.

Don’t judge. Be supportive in your approach and recognise the validity of a diversity of actions and viewpoints. It’s not about persuading people to think or act as you want them to!

Listening is crucial. Learn the importance of active listening to allow necessary discussion. Letting people talk, reducing dependency and empowering people to think for themselves are at the heart of radical education.

Overcome powerlessness. If everything is connected you can’t change anything without changing everything. But you can’t change everything, so that means you can’t change anything!’ (A student after a lesson on globalisation from the book Rethinking Globalisation) (Bigelow and Peterson 2003).

While it’s not true that we cannot change anything, this student’s comment demonstrates how depression and a feeling of powerlessness is a logical reaction when solutions seem very small in the face of such large forces. Here are some tips for giving positive workshops about negative subjects:

Don’t cram in too much information. Go step by step and give things time and space to develop. Mention the empowering side. Look for the positive things we can do and emphasise our creativity, our adaptability. Sharing personal experiences and failures can be very useful. Start with concrete achievable aims and develop from there.

It is important that people are not left feeling isolated and that there is follow up.

Try making a presentation about initiatives or protests that have inspired you with images or photos and use this is a springboard for talking about the viability of these ideas.

Making the leap to action

There are lots of issues which people are angry and passionate about and areas where they want to take action. Getting together to discuss and understand problems is a good way to reduce feelings of isolation and to launch campaigns and projects. It is really important to pick our starting points carefully, to build up trust and meet people in their daily realities, whilst not being scared of expressing radical views. Having worked with different groups we have been continually inspired by people’s views, opinions and desires to instigate change. These experiences have helped us to break down the false distinction between activists and everyone else and we have learned as much as we have taught. Popular education is about building from the beginning and ﬁnding innovative ways to learn together, realising the capacity that we have to take control of our lives and facilitating collective action, and for us, this lies at the heart of building movements for change.

Popular Education Articles

Commeuppance Thoughts on popular education, storytelling and activism for a possible better world

Informal Education Project Great site with loads of articles, links specialising in the theory and practice of informal education, social pedagogy, lifelong learning, social action, and community learning and development.

Popular education films

Liam Kane from the University of Glasgow speaks about his interest in the area of popular education and how the Pink Tide represents exemplary lessons for the rest of the world to learn. Liam presented an interactive session on popular education at the Pink Tide conference. The conference was hosted by the Centre for the Study of Social and Global justice, based in the School of Politics and International Relations.

The aim of Encuentro is to bring together approximately 50 – 75 educators, academics, students and activists with an interest in popular education theories, methodologies and practices. This Action Chronicle presents some of the happenings of the two-day gathering that served to share popular education praxi.

How can we have meaningful participation when decision making is in the hands of the few?

Dr Eurig Scandrett knows that “popular education is about a dialogue”. He’s studied education systems in communities affected by pollution and other environmental injustices.

“What formal education does is give certain groups of people the power to select the knowledge which is supposed to be good for, usually, young people,” he argues.
His conclusion is that the non-participation of groups affected by the outcomes of decisions leads to an unhealthy democracy.

Dr Scandrett’s solution is an education system where participants negotiate what is taught — and where people teach from personal experience.

Some individuals are going further. Tired of the shackles of a force-fed syllabus, they’ve decided to hack their own education — so called hackademics.

Do we have the right to call ourselves a democracy when very few people have a proper say? Is formal education failing citizens and leading to an unhealthy existence?

Part 1
Judith Marshall and Rita Kwok Hoi Yee, two Popular Educators share their stories and thoughts on the theory and aspects of Popular Education

Pedagogy of the Oppressed: Noam Chomsky, Howard Gardner, and Bruno della Chiesa Askwith Forum On Wednesday, May 1, the Askwith Forum commemorated the 45th anniversary of the publication of Paolo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” with a discussion about the book’s impact and relevance to education today.

Analysis of Paulo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Short documentary about Paulo Freire.
Seeing Through Paulo’s Glasses: Political Clarity, Courage and Humility
Directed and Produced by Dr. Shirley Steinberg, and Dr.Giuliana Cucinelli

Paulo Freire and Ubiratan D’Ambrosio / English

—————

There are loads more videos on Popular Education and Paulo Friere online, just search youtube and google.

Resources: Books

Books

General

Acklesberg, Martha (1991). Free Women of Spain, Anarchism and the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women. Edinburgh: AK Press.

A big thanks to the Trapese Popular Education collective for allowing us to reprint their overview of popular education. The Trapese Popular Education Collective is Kim Bryan, Alice Cutler and Paul Chatterton.They are based in the UK and since 2004 have been working with groups of adults and young people to understand and take action on issues including climate change, globalisation and migration. They also produce educational resources and promote participatory, interactive learning through training and skill-shares (see www.trapese.org).

]]>http://www.permanentculturenow.com/popular-education/feed/09065Real Utopias how Social Change happenshttp://www.permanentculturenow.com/real-utopias-how-social-change-happens-2/
http://www.permanentculturenow.com/real-utopias-how-social-change-happens-2/#respondThu, 10 Jul 2014 13:15:59 +0000http://www.permanentculturenow.com/?p=8265Overview of Erik Olin Wright's theory of social change Real Utopias, which explains how social change happens using the Transition Movement as an example.

]]>This is a condensed version of Erik Olin Wright – Real Utopias – A Socialist toolbox

Some of this is directly lifted from Eriks articles. I have added some thoughts on how this might be applied to the Transition Movement as an example of it in practice.

Real Utopias Overview

Real Utopias are utopias that embody emancipatory ideals and they are real because they attempt to formulate viable institutional designs.

The emancipatory ideal:

An economy organized in such a way as to serve the needs and aspirations of ordinary people, not elites, and to do this the economy must in some way or another be controlled by ordinary people—that is, subordinated to social power. This is based on radical democratic egalitarian understanding of social and political justice based on the following three Moral Foundations:
• Equality: In a socially just society all persons would have broadly equal access to the material and social means necessary to live a flourishing life.
• Democracy: In a fully democratic society, all people would have broadly equal access to the necessary means to participate meaningfully in decisions about things which affect their lives.
• Sustainability: Future generations should have access to the social and material means to live flourishing lives at least at the same level as the present generation.

Capitalism is the problem:

Wright view of Capitalism based on these 3 moral foundations finds that Capitalism is problematic:
• Equality: Capitalism inherently generates levels of inequality in income and wealth that systematically violate social justice.
• Democracy: Capitalism generates severe deficits in realizing democratic values by excluding crucial decisions from public deliberation, allowing private wealth to affect access to political power, and allowing workplace dictatorships.
• Sustainability: Capitalism inherently threatens the quality of the environment for future generations because of imperatives for consumerism and endless growth.

Transforming the world:

There are two ways of trying to make the world a better place:
1. Ameliorative reforms: Look at existing institutions, identify their flaws and propose improvements.
2. Real utopias: Envision the contours of an alternative social world that embodies emancipatory ideals and then look for social innovations we can create in the world as it is that move us towards that destination.

There are 3 potential economic arrangements/powers:
• Capitalism: an economic structure within which economic activity is controlled through the exercise of economic power based on the control of economic resources.
• Statism: an economic structure within which economic activity is controlled through the exercise of state power based on the control of rule making and rule enforcing over territory.
• Socialism: an economic structure within which economic activity is controlled through the exercise of “social power” based on capacity to mobilize voluntary cooperation and collective action.

The idea of HYBRIDS:

All real economic systems are complex combinations of these structures capitalism, statism, and socialism. We call an economy “capitalist” when capitalism is dominant. The possibility of socialism, therefore, revolves around the problem of enlarging and deepening the socialist component of the hybrid. Wright refers to this as the problem of pathways to social empowerment.

Two central problems of emancipatory social transformation that need to be addressed:

1. Institutional designs that reduce capitalist empowerment and increase social empowerment and civil societies control over economic power.
2. Strategies of transformation that can lead to this.

Below are the multiple ways in which social empowerment can be increased by:
• social empowerment over the way state power affects economic activity
• social empowerment over the way economic power shapes economic activity
• social empowerment directly over economic activity

Statist socialism

• Political parties are associations formed in civil society with the goal of influencing states.
• Their power depends upon their capacities to mobilize for collective actions of various sorts
• Economic power is marginalised, civil society and the state organise the economy.
• Classic Marxist idea of revolutionary socialism.
• In theory Workers councils setup and represented within the state, if fully empowered them would institutionalise social power in the state.
• Historically in Russia this resulted in centralisation of power in state and a top down domination.
• This became Statism not social empowerment.
• Nowadays Statism not seen as the way to social empowerment, but the state would still play a role in delivering public services.
• Question is how this state provision can be managed by a democratically empowered civil society.
• At present corporate power has a huge influence over state policies and public goods are often geared towards capital accumulation, not social needs.

Social Democratic Statist Regulation

• State constrains and regulates economic power.
• Even with deregulation and triumph of free market ideologies state still regulates processes that impinges on economic power.
• The extent to which these positive forms of state intervention are subordinated to social power becomes a pathway to social empowerment.
• Often though state regulation is more responsive to the needs of capital than civil society.
• Challenge is to what degree is it possible within capitalism to democratise state regulatory processes which undercut the power of capital and enhance social power.

Associational Democracy

• Civil society directly participates in governance activities usually along with State agencies.
• Involves the joint effects of economic, social and state power coming together to manage economy.
• To the extent that the associations involved are internally democratic and representative of interests in civil society, and the decision-making process in which they are engaged is open and deliberative, rather than heavily manipulated by elites and the state, then associative democracy can contribute to social empowerment.

Social Capitalism

• Economic power rooted in private ownership.
• Civil society can through mechanisms directly affect the way economic power is used.
• Example is Trade Union pension funds being used for public good.
• Not limited to capital funds controlled by civil associations in society, could also include collective involvement of workers in aspects of workplace management.
• Replacing shareholder councils with stakeholder councils on corporate board of directors.
• Workers councils within the workplace.
• Consumer orientated social movements that put pressure on corporations, protests, boycotts etc.

Core Social Economy

Direct involvement of secondary associations in civil society organising various aspects of economic activity, not simply shaping economic power.
This is a alternative way of directly organising economic activity that is distinct from capitalist market
production, state-organized production or household production.
Production organised by collectives directly to satisfy human needs, not subject to profit maximisation or state technocratic rationality.
Examples would be community organised healthcare, NGOs that facilitate fair trade cutting out the middle men, community land trusts that remove land from the market.
In capitalist societies this is currently funded by charitable donations, a lot are organised by religious institutions.
Alternative could be for The State to fund this type of work from taxation as happens in Canada with their healthcare system.
Obstacles to expansion of this social economy are providing an adequate standard of living for people working within it, an unconditional basic income could overcome this.

Problems of social power:

These five pathways show ways in which social power potentially take control over economic production and distribution, which means we are moving closer to socialism. Good reason to be sceptical of how power in civil society could be organised to take on control of allocation of resources for production and distribution.

Two big problems:

Firstly, Civil society is not a consistent coherent whole it is a multitude of different organisations with different ideas, goals and solidarities, that includes opposing views. Many organisations in Civil society are based on self interest and exclusion and preservation of privilege, why would these groups lead to ameliorating the harms of capitalism, let alone to human emancipation?

This vision of socialism requires a state and thus differs from anarchism, on the basis that:
A state is needed to create the rules of the game and mechanisms of coordination that allow civil society to to achieve the necessary integration to control either state or economy.

Secondly, civil society groups contain many associations that are inconsistent with egalitarian emancipatory ideals, which could lead to tyranny of the majority. The challenge would be how to devise an institutional framework for democratic deepening and associational empowerment which would foster radical, democratic, egalitarian conceptions of emancipation. The more we move olng the pathway of social empowerment the more favourable the conditions would be for this.

Strategic logics of Transformation:

The five proposals above do not propose to be a blueprint for a socialist society as you would need many other institutional transformations. That said if these were implemented in a serious thoroughgoing way, capitalism would be profoundly transformed. Taken singly they may seem modest reforms, but taken together they would challenge the class relations and the structures of power. Capitalism would be a much subordinated power.

These utopian designs are not achievable under the current existing social and political conditions. Achievability depends on the powers of social actors and the context in which they act, you need to understand the strategic logics of transformation.

There are 3 general collective strategies that can help us move towards social emancipation:

1. Ruptural (radical break in institutions): Revolutionary socialist tradition. Ruptural strategies directed at capitalism as a system are implausible, but ruptures in specific institutions may be needed to open up possibilities for symbiotic transformations. The idea is a sharp discontinuity and rapid change rather than a metamorphosis over time.
2. Interstitial (build new institutions in the cracks of the system): Anarchist tradition. Interstitial strategies create building blocks of emancipatory alternatives. These often don’t pose an immediate threat to Capitalism and are often ignored by more radical critics of capitalism as being merely symbolic, but cumulatively they can pose a serious challenge and also make a difference to peoples lives.
3. Symbiotic (use existing institutions to solve problems in ways that transform institutions): Social democratic tradition. Symbiotic strategies are needed to expand the space for interstitial transformations. These often have a contradictory element to them in that they can help stabilise capitalism in the short term but provide shifts in power over the long term.

In practice the hope is that there is a hybrid of developments that encompass all of these tactics. They all contain ricks and dilemmas and none of them is probably sufficient on its own. Often activists become deeply committed to one model seeing it as the way forward and they utilise lots of energy fighting against rejected models.

A long-term project with any prospects for success must grapple with the messy problem of combining these strategies, even if the combination inevitably means that struggles often operate at cross-purposes

How this relates to Transition Movement:

Transition can be seen as the manifestation of social power through civil society, where it acts to get people in communities together to build solidarity and address problems. It is not really involved in Ruptural transformation, although it could be supportive of this type of transformation, if it occurs particularly at Institutional level and as supportive in terms of providing practical support after a rupture had taken place.

Overall though, it tends to be much more involved in Interstitial metamorphosis and Symbiotic metamorphosis depending on the people involved in the Transition Initiative. Examples of Interstitial metamorphosis within Transition are things like food projects, reskilling, energy coops, community supported agriculture etc. These projects are removing areas of production from the capitalist system, though they will still be interacting with it, but crucially they are often run on cooperative principles utilising different models of participation. REconomy can be seen as example of Symbiotic metamorphosis, that is a process of reorganising local economies to benefit local communities, which also provides mutual benefits to Local Authorities in terms of providing jobs, or services that also help sustain Capitalist model, even though it is also changing the social relations in some aspects.

So Transition can be a vehicle for Social Change, predominantly through increasing social power and the scope of civil society. It can be used to help affect change in all of the pathways that Wright highlights as increasing social empowerment. In practice Transition is predominantly acting in the social economy pathways highlighted, though it can be present in Socialist and Social Democracy pathways, depending on the people invovled in the Transition Initiative. Transition also suffers from the problems that Wright highlights as problematic for civil society. Not everyone invovled in Transition would see themselves as anti-capitalist, in fact they may be supportive of Capitalism, that is not to say that there are many whom are critical of Capitalism. There is also not explicit aims of social justice outlined like Wright does in terms of equality, democracy and sustainability within Transition Initiatives as people are attracted to Transition for a variety of reasons that may or may not align with some of these values.

Films

Here is a video of Erik explaining his Real Utopia project.

Content goes here

More information

]]>http://www.permanentculturenow.com/real-utopias-how-social-change-happens-2/feed/08265Seed Economicshttp://www.permanentculturenow.com/seed-economics/
http://www.permanentculturenow.com/seed-economics/#respondThu, 07 Nov 2013 14:00:57 +0000http://www.permanentculturenow.com/?p=7531Exploratory and experimental piece looks at the value of seed saving and sharing as an economic model in its own right and as a way of supporting the local resource based economies of the future.

A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of Money – John Ruskin

In a world of ‘print it off’ fiat currency, fractional reserve banking and the cold anti-human brutality of Neoliberalism, it is a breath of air to know that there are alternatives to the off the bone savagery that we are confronted with. There are many different ways in which people can trade, barter and swap their skills, the fact that we have one all consuming domination of a particular model, doesn’t mean that this model has won the fight, it simply means that it has been enforced upon us by willing Politicians, criminal bankers and the usual Selfish ‘I’m alright jack’ underpinning which has allowed this vicious model to perpetuate around the globe, forcing billions into poverty and destroying the natural world for the sake of economic growth.

Locally grown resources as economy

So with this in mind, I want to talk a little about seeds and how they offer their own model of economics when we interact with them in a meaningful and thoughtful way. Imagine that you have five hundred vegetable seeds, you sow two hundred of them, you keep a hundred to grow the following year, and you distribute two hundred between your friends and family, in itself this is a powerful thing because you are distributing seeds which will become plants, which become food, which becomes a resource that can then swap and exchange with others. But the story doesn’t end here, if you sow and grow your own hundred seeds during the following growing season, and allow some of the plants that you grow to go to seed, you can then collect the seeds from the plants starting the whole cycle all over again without any cost, and little in way of work other than picking and storing the seeds. So in this situation in the following year in your garden, you have allowed say twenty of your edible food plants to go to seed, each plant produces roughly around two thousand seeds, and once again, you give some away, you trade some, and you save some for the following growing season. Other people who you have shared or exchanged the seeds can then be encouraged to also allow some of the edible plants to continue growing so that they produce their own seeds.

Seeds for resilient local resources based economies

In a world that has been decimated by the economics of Neoliberalism in terms of both the worth of people and their skills, and the pulling apart of nature in the form of resources, we urgently need a model that will work for people and planet, seeds are one solution to this problem, there can never be too many seeds, unlike the preposterous idea of printing paper money that has no intrinsic value other than the promise of its worth by politicians, and our own belief in its worth. Seeds on the other hand, always have value, they will never depreciate in value, they will never suffer from inflation and stagflation, and their worth also goes above and beyond human need in that they help to maintain Ecosystems and provide food for other non human life in the planet.

Stock market v’s community seed swap event

On the stock market floors of the world, vital human resources are traded without our inclusion and input into how we best use and distribute these resources, and since we are consumers and not producers, we are further away from this access to making decisions and having an input into such things things. Stock markets work for their own ends, for the bonuses and salaries of traders and buyers, we are merely an end of the line cash cow for the retailers of of these vital human resources. Stock markets are prone to crashes that have a detrimental effect on people and their well being, they can be prone to greed if a vital human resource has become something that a lot of money can be earned from by the Markets as we have witnessed fairly recently with the global banking sector speculating on food prices in the market, which has resulted in huge prices in staple foodstuffs. A similar gathering where vital human resources are traded is the Community seed swap event, at these usually small yearly gatherings people who saved seeds come together to swap them for seeds that others have saved. The mechanisms at work here are community based, as opposed to being traded on a stock market floor, when seeds are swapped it provides both people in the interaction with vital human resources that are sustainable and resilient. There will never be a crash at seed swap events as is the case with stock markets, the prices of seeds will never become fetishistic objects of speculation because they are shared out between those attending these events who in turn generate their own supply free of charge, and most of all, we are control of our vital resources, unlike the stock market that is part of the control mechanism of our resources before they reach us in shops and local market halls.

]]>http://www.permanentculturenow.com/seed-economics/feed/07531Be feral, be Human!http://www.permanentculturenow.com/be-feral-be-human/
http://www.permanentculturenow.com/be-feral-be-human/#respondThu, 31 Oct 2013 14:00:41 +0000http://www.permanentculturenow.com/?p=7495Can human beings shake off their social conditioning as a means of interacting more closely with nature and other life on the planet through a personal experience narrative.

I have read with interest over the last few months about people attending rewilding courses here in the UK and in the States. Though I have never attended anything like this in my life, I feel a strong empathy with the need that people have to remove the consumerist and self interested individualist thinking that has been rammed down our throats since the days of the Reagan and Thatcher Governments of the early 1980s. This mindset offers its buyers an ‘I’m above nature’ rational thinking approach that situates them on a pedestal at the centre of the isolated universe of the ego self. But the hangover from this absurd and selfish way of thinking is beginning to kick in with many people through mounting financial debt, a deep unhappiness with the drudgery of employment, issues of identity and the inevitable depression and mental health pressure that comes from adopting anti-human ideas and ways of thinking.

Being feral, a personal perspective

From a personal perspective I have escaped much of this way of thinking, not because I am smarter than others, on the contrary, I have always been quite feral in my approach to life and have trusted intuition and gut feelings most of the time. My own feral education began as a kid growing up in densely populated and run down Council Housing in Salford in Manchester, like many kids before the advent of the repetitious button pressing of indoor console culture, I played outdoors an awful lot, made dens in parks, got covered in mud and swam in seemingly dangerous stretches of water during the summer months. When I hit my teens there were a number of occasions when I had been out to gigs and clubs and ended up in a state where I was a bit worse for wear by the end of the evening, which resulted in me falling asleep on patches of grass and hills near to advertising hoardings and the newly emerging shopping multiples, I can clearly remember on a couple of occasions waking up in the morning and watching breath taking sunrises, and feeling the cool welcoming damp of the morning dew whilst breathing in the scent of different grasses that grew wildly within the cultivated urban grasses.

Falling in love with nature and a carefree sense of freedom

When I became involved in the New Traveler culture during the 1980s I thought nothing of taking bits and pieces of discarded fruit and vegetables from supermarket skips and cooking them up into a meal on a small fire on either travelers site, or a secluded woody area if I was on the move, this then became almost like an ongoing practice for me when hitch hiking, on two occasions I actually got lost in the moment of hitching and let it take me to a remote area of Wales instead of the intended festival site where I was initially heading to, on one occasion I found a pine forest in West Wales, and spent two weeks camping their on my own, only nipping into the local town to scavenge for discarded food and buy tobacco and cigarette papers. The other spontaneous feral journey around this time was spent hitch hiking round small villages in Wiltshire, this time I would spend the day busking in whatever village I had stopped at, playing either an Irish penny whistle or a battered old three string acoustic guitar, in the evenings I would sit in various fields and woods either solo or with people whom I had met and smoke hashish from an Indian ceremonial chillum whilst watching the sun go down and listen to nature relaxing and winding down into the calm silence of night. Amongst other feral friends that I got to know we would often have conversations round the fire about the ‘End of the Age of Reason’ and the collapse of industrial society, these conversations were far from grim and even further from depressing, they were filled with our optimistic notions that one day human beings would put nature before profit, and peoples creative and artistic skills before the mindless drudgery of locked in employment. This hasn’t happened yet, but there are many who are making this happen within their own lives and the lives of the communities that they have become part of, it is worthwhile reading Tom Hodgkinson’s amusing and brilliant work ‘How to be Idle‘ and Marks Boyle’s equally influential work ‘Moneyless Man’ to give an insight into more modern perspectives of what I am trying to get at.

Feral thinking

It is very difficult to sum up the thinking of being feral for a number of reasons, firstly there are many occasions where the thought process takes a back seat and you just go out and do something based on a flash thought or gut instinct, and secondly modern day rational language itself cannot fully explain the mental and thinking side of being feral. I am not here proposing anti-intellectualism, far from it, being feral and being a raw stripped down to the basics human being has its own kind of intellect for want of a better word and there are constants that I have gained throughout all of this and they are the warmth of friendship and community, the love of nature, and the love of the elements that provide the glue and lubrication for life on our beautiful planet. The warmth and inspiration that I found in what some would refer to as a precarious existence has given me some sense of security beyond the material, something which I will carry, and will carry me to the end of my days.

]]>http://www.permanentculturenow.com/be-feral-be-human/feed/07495Bioneers in the age of anti-naturehttp://www.permanentculturenow.com/bioneers-in-the-age-of-anti-nature/
http://www.permanentculturenow.com/bioneers-in-the-age-of-anti-nature/#respondWed, 16 Oct 2013 22:50:26 +0000http://www.permanentculturenow.com/?p=7409Bioneers are those people experimenting to create low impact solutions for an uncertain future.

]]>Due to The dense and gross materialism of popular consumer capitalism and its all engulfing nature of competitiveness and built in inequality, inventing new ways of doing things and tinkering with older low impact technologies that were forced onto the backburner by the absolute domination of fossil fuels, is a lot easier and accessible than you might think, particularly when its fired up and inspired by absolute necessity and a new generation of solutions based ideas and practices. Firstly, we have absolutely nothing to lose in our endeavors to live a more thoughtful human life on this earth that we are taking apart for our frivolous and throwaway consumption, and we also have a lot to gain, as we are able to disengage with the ruinous system that has people and planet locked into a destructive slavery through our own efforts and innovations and the efforts of others who share these aims and goals.

Closing the loop

With the proliferation of Permaculture as an emancipatory system of ideas and strategies we now have a means to provide solutions to much of the problems caused by capitalism and highlighted by the Environmental movement for the last 4 or 5 decades. Permaculture is also moving our perceptions away from the idea of ‘Environment’ as something separate that we need to protect for our material needs into a way of thinking that is more more interconnected and holistic in our relation to the planet and our natural habitat within the planet.

Degeneration of monocultural linear economics and the illusion of domination

But back in the world of work and money We have broken and deeply flawed monetary system that isn’t designed for the well being of people and planet, its design and logical conclusion is the extraction of every piece of raw material on the planet and its selling off of these raw materials to profit a tiny handful of people until there is nothing left whatsoever. And at some point in the not distant future this flawed model of money and economics is set to fail again, with adverse consequences for millions of people. The mono-cultural core of capitalism is perpetual profit based on the idea of a perpetual growth that isolates itself from the natural resources and the Labour that generates it. Similarly our perceptions of nature vary through different political, theological and philosophical positions, but in the real world, there is little evidence to suggest that any of these systems are working towards a holistic, universal and resilient future with nature and her well being central to it, rather these systems have accepted the domination of capitalism and infinite growth whilst throwing out faint and watered down mutterings of protestations without actions.But as many are aware, we are intrinsically and essentially a part of nature, and our best attempts to dominate nature are fueled by greed and growth.

Bioneers and praxis

The saving grace here again is permaculture and those who are making, designing, planning and trying out ideas. This Praxis of permaculture and its ethics and principles are enacted by those brave and inspired Bioneers who are not scared to apply alternative thinking, and to experiment their way into a better future. There are good many Bioneers of our time, including as basic examples the City repair movement in Portland Oregon in the US, the Biospheric Foundation in Salford, Manchester in the UK. These two communities, and many hundreds more like them globally are trying out new ideas and experimenting their way into an uncertain future using ideas drawn from a whole series of practices and disciplines, our monocultural times demand holistic thinking for a fairer and more ecologically resilient future world where we reconnected with nature and each other.